To An Athlete Dying Young

July 28, 2001

On The Death of Roscoe Harris

Marist High School

1992

I saw him make the three point shot against Seton Hall Prep in March, 1992. Brevin Knight had his hand on the ball when he shot from 30 feet out. The buzzer sounded. The ball went in. Tie game. Overtime. Marist won.

That was the year when the championship game was the one before. You could beat the Russians and the Chinese. That didn’t count. There was only one team that mattered. Marist 63. Saint Anthony 45. There is no banner for that one. It was the game. It was the championship. Marist split their next two games. No matter.

“The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the marketplace....

I saw him make 8 points on one play. He was fouled as he was shooting. The shot went in. The player who fouled threw the ball. A technical foul was called. He made all the foul shots. On the inbound pass he scored a three point shot. 8 points.

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder high....

I never met him. Our only connection was Blue and Gold. We wore those colors 4 decades apart yet they bind us still. He was far, far better at his sport than I was at mine. We both earned varsity letters. That makes us brothers.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay....

The events surrounding his death at the age of 28 suggest something heroic. It was not over drugs. It was not over any of the vices associated with urban streets. He died half a block from where my uncle lived in a very different Jersey City. He died a few blocks from the church where my father was baptized 100 years ago. One of my classmates, and fellow varsity letter winner, is now the pastor of that church.

He died in defense of a woman. Death, a “necessary end”, comes for us all. He faced it, perhaps recklessly, but with gallantry. “We take our men as we find them.” He was a man.

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out....

He left his game on the field. He didn’t lose. His time ran out.

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man

So set, before its echoes fade,

The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

And hold to the lintel up

The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laureled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl’s.”

ROSCOE HARRIS

MARIST HIGH SCHOOL

1992

Requiescat in Pace